Convicted Felons Should Have A Right To Vote After Time Served

The attitude and belief of whether a convicted felon should have the right to vote after they have served time has many sides to the argument. There is the argument that permission to vote in elections should be given dependant on the crime that they committed, and the severity of that crime.

Another argument states outright that the Felon should not be allowed to vote and there is no exception to the rule which is totally opposite to another school of through that if a convicted Felon has served their time then they have paid their debt to society and should be allowed to their vote. There are many shades of grey in this argument.

If we take just one of the major arguments that supports Convicted Felons not being allowed to vote after they have served their time that would probably be that if they should not have the same rights as a citizen that does not have any convictions. Basically this is saying that they are second class citizens.

It should also be noted that not all countries prevent convicted felons form voting even when they are serving time much less when they are free. When giving consideration to the Felony that they committed, does imprisonment for the non-payment of parking tickets warrant the same barring of a right to vote in comparison to imprisonment for manslaughter?

On the other side of the argument, as stated earlier if a convicted felon has completed their time they have surely paid their debt to society and in doing so they have a clean slate and should be accepted back into the community. When released from prison they are expected to do everything that rest of the population does such as pay taxes, so they should have a right to vote on who will decide where that money is spent.

As part of the process of imprisonment they would have received some sort of instruction as to how their past behaviour would have affected other people, so on release they should be able to become model citizens. There is another aspect to this argument and that is that sometimes the Convicted Felon is perhaps that victim of circumstances and location. It could be argued that they would have ended up in prison no matter what they did.

There are many arguments both for and against the allowing a convicted felon the right to vote after they have served time, but the most compelling argument has to be that as they have served their time they have paid their debt to society.

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